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A lot of people in government don't really read books at all.

Geoff Mulgan

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Geoff Mulgan
Age: 63
Born: 1961
Born: January 1
Economist
Writer
Books
Read
Government
Book
Really
People

More quotes by Geoff Mulgan

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By international standards, many of the U.K.'s policies for civil society are exemplary. However, there are concerns about constraints on civil liberties - particularly restrictions on free assembly and about the rising tide of everyday regulation has seriously impeded community activity - from organising street parties to helping children.
Geoff Mulgan
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All real capitalisms are impure hybrids, mongrels mixed with other strains.
Geoff Mulgan
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There is a yearning for people to return to elementary moral virtues, such as integrity and commitment. We distrust people who have no centering of values. We greatly respect businessmen, for example, if they display those virtues, even if we don't necessarily agree with the people.
Geoff Mulgan
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Big business increasingly likes to portray itself as socially concerned, adopting the style of civic action through 'campaigns' of varying degrees of cynicism.
Geoff Mulgan
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Teenagers learn best by doing things, they learn best in teams and they learn best by doing things for real - all the opposite of what mainstream schooling actually does.
Geoff Mulgan
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Spreading an idea is hard work.
Geoff Mulgan
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One of the lessons of history is that even the deepest crises can be moments of opportunity. They bring ideas from the margins into the mainstream.
Geoff Mulgan
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Democratic nation states remain far more capable of managing the circuit of coercion, taxation and legitimation than any transnational bodies.
Geoff Mulgan
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The wrongful arrest of tens of thousands of British Muslims after the September 11 attacks can be explained by the very poor intelligence the police had, and, just possibly, excused by the fact that a terrorist action in Britain linked to British Muslims would have been hugely damaging.
Geoff Mulgan
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I didn't much like being in Parliament physically. I found it a bit depressing. It's very dark and heavy. I like being out and about.
Geoff Mulgan
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Economies are complex beasts that need people to do an extraordinary range of tasks.
Geoff Mulgan
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Lots of creativity is and should be solitary.
Geoff Mulgan
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Social innovation thrives on collaboration on doing things with others, rather than just to them or for them: hence the great interest in new ways of using the web to 'crowdsource' ideas, or the many experiments involving users in designing services.
Geoff Mulgan
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So is civil society prepared for the future? Probably not. Most organisations have to live hand to mouth, juggling short-term funding and perpetual minor crises. Even the bigger ones rarely get much time to stand back and look at the bigger picture. Many are on a treadmill chasing after contracts and new funding.
Geoff Mulgan
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All innovation is about letting go, saying goodbye to things to create space for the new.
Geoff Mulgan
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The biggest barrier to dealing with climate change is us: our own attachment to habits that are hard to shift, and our great ability to park or ignore uncomfortable choices.
Geoff Mulgan
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The idea of entrepreneurship applies as much in politics, religion, society and the arts as it does in business.
Geoff Mulgan
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Young people who were relaxed about posting every detail of their life on Facebook become a lot less relaxed when they realise just how transparent their life has become to future employers.
Geoff Mulgan
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The City of London has never been known for understanding technology and has never matched Silicon Valley's tradition of knowledgeable investment in technology start-ups, just as the U.K. government has never matched the vast investment made by the U.S. government.
Geoff Mulgan
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Over 5,000 years, states have made surprisingly consistent claims about their duties. They have promised to protect people from threats promote their welfare deliver justice and also, perhaps less obviously, uphold truth - originally truths about the cosmos, and more recently truths drawn from reason and knowledge.
Geoff Mulgan